Switch hit: Gill & Co. look to quickly adapt to long format as India face depleted West Indies in first Test

If It’s Monday It Must Be Madurai is a travelogue by Srinath Perur that takes its title from the 1969 comedy If It’s Tuesday it Must Be Belgium. On Wednesday, Shubman Gill and his band of merry men were in Motera, Ahmedabad, preparing to face the West Indies in a Test match, but some parts of their weary bodies and bleary minds may still have been in Dubai, where they won the Asia Cup.

The cricket calendar is packed so tightly that fans can enjoy a nonstop fiesta on their screens, never having to move from the comfort of their living rooms, but the story is different for the players.

It might look like a jet-setting life, but changes of weather, time zone, conditions and formats are not something you can easily adapt to, no matter how professional you are. To that end, the first challenge for this Indian team was to switch mindset from looking to hit every ball for six to leaving danger well alone outside the off stump.


After two training sessions at the Narendra Modi Stadium, India are well on their way, and the one saving grace for them is that the opposition is in some strife themselves. West Indies are without two of their first-choice fast bowlers and are poised to hand a Test debut to Khary Pierre, an orthodox left arm spinner from Trinidad.

India’s bowler of the same ilk, Ravindra Jadeja, has been made vice-captain and is one of the certainties in the bowling attack. Mohammed Siraj will also start, but aside from this, all bets are off when it comes to the bowling attack. You would expect Jasprit Bumrah to start, but workload management is a curious beast.

India have a glut of options when it comes to picking the best bowling unit to take 20 wickets. Kuldeep Yadav, who didn’t play a single Test in England, joins Axar Patel and Washington Sundar as spin options who can turn a game on its head. Prasidh Krishna offers height, which could be useful on the red soil pitch where extra bounce might come into play. Nitish Reddy puts his hand up as a seam up option that lengthens the batting. With a bit of rain about and the pitch having a decent grass covering on the eve of the Test, a decision on the playing eleven will be put off till match morning. India will know this is the first home Test since 2011 not to feature the recently retired R Ashwin, who picked up 383 wickets from 65 matches at an average of 21.57 since he made his debut.

With a 0-3 home loss against New Zealand still on the mind, it remains to be seen what sort of pitches the home team opts for in this two-Test series. “I can’t really speak about what were the conversations [about pitches] before I came [as captain], but we will be looking to play on wickets that offer help to both the batsmen and to the bowlers,” said Gill. “I think the challenge for any team that comes to India is going to be spin and reverse swing.”

In England, most recently, Tests went the distance, a stark contrast from when India have played at home on rank turners. “We are looking to play some hard-grinding cricket. Over the past few years, if you see the Test matches in India did not really go up to five days. What we are looking to do is to play some good, hard cricket,” Gill said. “We aren’t looking for any easy options. We have got the skillset to be able to play on any kind of wicket.”

The West Indies are dangerous because they are in the opposite situation. “We have to just go out there, give it our best, ask God for guidance and stick together as a team,” said Roston Chase, the captain. “It makes us quite a dangerous side when we really have nothing to lose. We can just go and play freely because everyone is expecting us to lose. So, we can just go and express ourselves and play some good cricket.”

What form this expression will take and how long the Test will last is anyone’s guess. But Gill and friends can rest easy in one thought: for the moment, they are back home and won’t need to fly the coop to ply their trade for the time being.